The comments come as Layah Heilpern believes CBDCs will give rise to government-enforced censorship which will prevent residents from transacting how they wish.
Social media influencer and TV Host Layah Heilpern sees central bank digital currencies as a way for banks and governments to reign control over their people as Government-controlled “programmable money should terrify you.”
Heilpern, who also released Undressing Bitcoin: A Revealing Guide To The World’s Most Revolutionary Asset in September 2021, said in an interview on Friday with British news outlet GB News that the widespread rollout of a CBDC from nation-states is on its way, and that it could lead to the financial censorship of citizens in the future.
Heilpern claimed that as CBDCs are essentially programmable cryptocurrencies that run on blockchains, they could potentially be “programmed against you” at the urges of the centralized authority behind them:
“If for whatever reason you say the wrong thing, because you know we’re seeing censorship increasing, then that money can essentially be programmed to be used against you.”
Heilpern knows that a lot of people might find this concept to be “quite bizarre,” but it’s very realistic given the restrictions that were enforced on unvaccinated people by governments:
“With a CBDC, all [the government] have to do really is a program that money so you can’t spend it on certain things.”
Following up on the interview via a Twitter post, Heilpern didn’t shred her words as she stated that the “Central Bank Digital Currencies will be marketed as better for the environment and the solution to inflation. It’s a lie. Money is the energy that fuels your life; so programmable money should terrify you.”
Remarkably, such concerns around financial censorship have been especially dominant with crypto in general of late, with the recent Tornado Cash debacle, which saw the United States Treasury Sanction Ether (ETH) and USD Coin (USDC) addresses associated with the Ethereum-based privacy tool.
Perhaps the most controversial CBDC is China’s yuan (e-CNY), issued by the People’s Bank of China, which had its pilot version launched in April 2020, with some suggesting the injunction on crypto was conducted to make way for the digital Yuan.
According to IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, despite much criticism, CBDCs may offer developing nations more macroeconomic stability in comparison to decentralized currencies, as CBDCs would have the “backing of the state” and would of course be regulatory compliant.
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